‘God’s influencer’: Teen to become Catholic Church’s first millennial saint

A teen born in London but who lived in Italy and was nicknamed “God’s influencer” is a step closer to becoming a saint in the Catholic Church.

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Carlo Acutis,15, was a computer programming prodigy and gamer who died from leukemia in 2006. He may become the first millennial saint after Pope Francis recognized a second miracle to the teen, CNN reported.

The Vatican made the announcement on Thursday, The New York Times reported.

Carlo was born in 1991 in London and eventually moved to Milan with his family. His parents were not religious but his faith was supported by his Polish nanny. He started attending mass at the age of 7 and eventually encouraged his mother to rejoin the church.

In addition to playing video games such as Halo, Super Mario and Pokémon, Carlo taught himself programming to create a website that cataloged miracles, the Times reported.

His body was moved to Assisi after his death where he was placed in a shrine along with relics linked to him.

He was first beatified, becoming the first millennial to do so, after a first miracle was attributed to him in 2020. A boy from Brazil had a pancreatic birth defect and could not eat food normally. The child was healed, CNN reported.

Within a year an estimated 117,000 people visited Carlo’s shrine, The Washington Post and the Catholic News Service reported.

The second miracle involved a girl from Costa Rica who had head trauma after falling from her bike while in Florence where she was studying. The girl’s mother prayed for her daughter at Carlo’s tomb and was healed.

His mother also claimed that she had been told by people worldwide of miracles that were granted after praying to her son such as cures for infertility and cancer, the Times reported.

“Carlo was the light answer to the dark side of the web,” his mother Antonia told the Times in 2020.

Carlo is not a saint yet.

He is already being called the patron saint of the internet, the Times reported, but the pope still has to convene a meeting of cardinals to agree to it and then set a date for his canonization.

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